


Full Circle

by freedomworm



Category: Hamlet - Shakespeare, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead - Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (1990) RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-14
Updated: 2015-02-14
Packaged: 2018-03-12 09:08:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3351101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freedomworm/pseuds/freedomworm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's all geometry, when you come down to it. Life, that is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Full Circle

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really nervous about posting this, not just because it's for a fandom I'm not used to (Stoppard and Shakespeare! How daunting), but also because I usually don't write anything so ...sexual? Haha. I think it works, though, because -you know -Rosencrantz is probably an innocent baby, too. -_-'
> 
> Honestly, though, I just had to. I read the plays "Hamlet" and "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" in 2013 for the first time, and then I reread both of them recently and watched the Stoppard movie like two weeks ago. I wasn't sure how to write this, but here we are.

They wake up in a dark room, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern –Guildenstern and Rosencrantz.

He –one of them or perhaps, both of them –sits up with some intention of looking around at his surroundings, but there’s nothingness all around them and a light overhead, shining down on them from some fixed, indiscernible point.

“Are we-?”

“Do you think-?”

“Improbable,”

“Unlikely,”

“And yet.”

Rosencrantz –yes, that’s him, it’s always been him –looks around curiously and then shivers. “I’m cold,” he declares. “It’s cold.”

“Is it? I’m not.” says Guildenstern. He remains sprawled on his back.

“What?”

“What?”

“Not what?”

“Cold. I’m not cold.” Guildenstern says. “Where the bloody hell are we?”

“That’s the question?” Rosencrantz says. Of course it is. That’s always the question –always Guildenstern’s question that Rosencrantz can’t possibly answer and so Guildenstern remains as he is –impossibly lost. Sad. It’s Rosencrantz’s fault, really.

“Yes. What’s yours?”

“My question?” Rosencrantz scoots closer to Guildenstern and peers down at him. His eyes are closed.

“Yes, what is it?” he says.

Rosencrantz thinks about it. “How are you?” he decides.

Guildenstern’s eyes snap open and a look of irritation flickers over his face. “That’s it? All the questions, and you pick a greeting?” he half sits up and their noses are nearly touching.

“Greetings are important,” Rosencrantz reasons. “How are you?”

Guildenstern huffs out a breath of irritation and lies back, folding his hands behind his head. “What do you remember?” he asks.

Rosencrantz snaps his fingers, “Right! _T_ _hat’s_ the question,”

“Yours or mine?”

“What?”

Guildenstern makes a noise of frustration. “Never mind. What do you remember?”

“After everything I’ve forgotten?”

“Yes.”

“Well…” Rosencrantz scrunches up his nose, thinking. Darkness, darkness and… “You,” he says finally. “I remember you,”

Guildenstern rolls his eyes. “Well of course you do,” he says, “Assume we are the constant, you and I. Everything else is vague. What do you remember?”

“You,” Rosencrantz says.

 “That’s been established—”

Rosencrantz shakes his head. Guildenstern _must_ understand this essential fact. Because he _is_ the constant, “I remember you and I.” He thinks harder, trying to conjure an image of the two of them together –on the road, at -“At Elsinore. On a boat.” He says. “There was –were –the Player. The players. We –we died.” The realization is met by silence on both of their parts.

“And yet.” Guildenstern says. He sits up slowly, staring at Rosencrantz. “So this is it, then? Are we here? Forever?”

Rosencrantz shivers. He thinks there might be a draft. His hands are cold, but perhaps he’s imagining it. If they’re dead, then… “I don’t know.” He sighs. “I don’t _know_.” He jumps to his feet and stares out across the…space, where the light doesn’t touch and there’s nothing. He nudges the line between light and dark experimentally and the toe of his shoe disappears in the dark, but it doesn’t _feel_ different.

“What are you doing?” Guildenstern says sharply, sitting up completely now.

Rosencrantz takes a giant step forward and feels a gust of wind brush past him –and he emerges in a new spotlight, still surrounded in darkness, as if the light had simply moved with him. Guildenstern is nowhere to be seen, however, which is, no –which is _not_ good.

He turns on the spot, squinting into the darkness, but it’s no good and now –now he’s lost. He doesn’t know where he’s come from. “Guildenstern?” he whispers. There’s no answer and he tries again with a hopeful, “Rosencrantz?” Again, nothing. He’s really done it _now_. Done what? _It_. Whatever he’s always on the verge of doing –whatever anyone’s ever on the verge of doing. “Guildenstern,” Rosencrantz tries again in a more conversational tone, with the hope that this might bring about an impatient “what?” from somewhere over his shoulder.

A nervous feeling creeps over Rosencrantz –or perhaps he’s just cold, or perhaps he’s just –imagining. He squeezes his eyes shut. “I’m imagining,” he says and feeling satisfied by this experiment, opens his eyes, fully expecting to find Guildenstern before him. He’s genuinely surprised to discover he’s still alone in the circle of light, which is suspiciously smaller than he remembers. Or is it? He can’t tell, and he wants –he _needs_ Guildenstern, to tell him it’s _not_ smaller, that he’s being daft and –and…

The circle _is_ closing in on him and he tries to stand straight and take up the least amount of room he can ...and then it is dark.

It is dark.

Rosencrantz stands –or sits –or floats –in the black void with nothing before his eyes and nothingness all around him, going on and on, possibly forever. He trembles, and thinks –hopes –it’s from the cold, if there is a cold. He tries not to think of the great expanse of pitch blackness all around him and imagines:

“I am in a box. I am dead and I am in a box. A box.” He repeats to himself. He hums the most cheery tune he can think of and squeezes his eyes shut. Still dark, but this one is familiar. “I am in a box… a box… a box…”

It goes on, for one eternity and then another and Rosencrantz shouts, “Guildenstern!”

It echoes back to him–for days, it seems –and then:

           

“ _Roooseeencraaantz!”_ It’s far away, muffled. “ _Rosencrantz,_ ” This time it’s close, impossibly close, and warm hands encircle his wrists and suddenly –there is light.

“There’s no sense is wandering if you can’t find your way back,” Guildenstern says, austere in the way that he often is.

Rosencrantz, beyond relief to see Guildenstern –irritable, frowning, _wonderful_ Guildenstern –simply nods in response and Guildenstern’s expression softens. He puts an arm around Rosencrantz, pressing their sides together so that Rosencrantz can feel the warmth of Guildenstern’s body through cloth. “Good, then.” He says. “You’re here now, and that’s the point.”

Rosencrantz nods again and shudders, even though he isn’t cold. “How long?”

“Will we be here?”

“Was I gone?”

“Yes,” Guildenstern says, misunderstanding, “It felt like a lifetime.”

“Eternity.”

“Forever.”

“Too long,” Rosencrantz concludes quietly, and Guildenstern turns his head too look up at him. Their eyes meet, blue and green. Or is it brown? Hazel. Rosencrantz almost says something about it, but then they shift and –oh, there’s a bed. They’re in a bed? They’re in a bed.

“We’re in a bed,” Rosencrantz says. He’s somehow pressed up against Guildenstern, practically lying on top of him, and Guildenstern has an arm draped over his waist, keeping him there. It's inexplicable, as many things are, but it doesn't feel unfamiliar, nor unexpected.

Guildenstern raises his eyebrows. “We are,” he says, and kisses Rosencrantz gently.

“I’m not wearing anything,” Rosencrantz realizes, dumbfounded. He becomes distinctly aware of just exactly where their bodies are touching, and he feels his face heat up. He lets Guildenstern kiss him again, and it’s only when he presses on that it occurs to Rosencrantz that…

“Mm –hold on,” he says, even though Guildenstern’s hand has moved on up his back and into his hair and it is all very distracting. “What do you remember?”

Guildenstern pulls away enough to look at Rosencrantz properly, “What?”

“What’s the first thing you”

“-Not _now,_ Rosencrantz,” Guildenstern pleads.

“I have to know,” He does, and he thinks he’s never been more certain about anything. “How are you?”

“How are  _you_? Are you afflicted?”

“I remember,” Rosencrantz says, sitting up and pushing Guildenstern back, “I stepped out of the circle. It was eternity and –but I remember. Hamlet and we –we –the boat…the letter”

“Hamlet?”

There’s a pounding on the door and a shout. Guildenstern starts to turn and Rosencrantz feels something urgent bubbling up in his chest, making his heart beat fast. He reaches out and grabs Guildenstern’s arm pulling him back. There's a moment where Guildenstern resists the pull, but after a moment he turns his head away from the door, cupping Rosencrantz’s face to kiss him deeply.

The knocking continues.

“I need to dress –the door,” Guildenstern says, pulling back eventually. His lips are red and kiss-swollen and his blond hair is mussed. His eyes are wide and not completely focused, pupils dilated.

Rosencrantz doesn’t remember this.   “You can’t dress doors,” he says. “Now do it again,”

“Do what?”

“With your mouth. Kiss me. I don’t remember it.”

Guildenstern stares down at Rosencrantz, ignoring even the muffled shouting beyond the flat. He leans in slowly, pressing a firm kiss to Rosencrantz's lips, lingering, and kissing him deeper, opening his mouth, bringing them to a languid rhythm. How could Rosencrantz ever forget something like _this_?

“What do you remember?” Rosencrantz says when they stop to catch their breaths. The rapping on the door has stopped.

Guildenstern sighs and rolls his eyes up in thought. “Well, you, for one,” he says, and then thinks some more. He blinks and begins to frown, a tell-tale crease forming between his eyes. “I don’t know,” he says with distress.

“I remember you, and you remember me,” Rosencrantz says, “I’m Rosencrantz,”

“I’m Guildenstern,” he says,

“We’re here now, and that’s the point,” Rosencrantz says.

With a start, Guildenstern looks over to the door again. “There was a messenger…”

“That was the point,”

“The messenger leaves but we’re here now,” Guildenstern says, “If I had answered, then we’d be… where are we?”

“Home,”

“But then we’d be…”

“Dead,” Rosencrantz supplies.

Guildenstern fixes him with an exasperated look. “Don’t you find this peculiar? We’re here, but we don’t remember where we’ve been. Wittenberg!” he says suddenly, interrupting himself.

“I remember,” Rosencrantz says.

“Wittenberg?”

“You.”

“I feel that we’ve come in a circle,” Guildenstern says, frowning.

“It’s possible,” Rosencrantz says. “But the messenger is gone, so maybe not,”

“You know something.”

“I told you, I remember,”

“Tell me,” Guildenstern says.

“Now?”

Guildenstern gazes down at Rosencrantz, eyes roaming like he’s searching for something in his expression. “No,” he says finally, “Tell me later,”

Rosencrantz’s question –“After what?” –is cut short when Guildenstern brings their mouths together in another, bruising kiss. His lips are soft and warm and the kiss is… it’s nice. It arouses something in Rosencrantz's chest that moves down into his belly and warms him from head to toe. Rosencrantz doesn't remember this part, but it must be so, and if it is, he thinks he could get used to it. Again. 

Guildenstern grinds his hips down and Rosencrantz feels –something. Hot. Hotter. "What’re you doing?” he gasps.

“It feels right.” Guildenstern says.

“Well, don’t _stop,_ then,” Rosencrantz says. He hooks his legs around Guildenstern’s hips, crossing his ankles behind his lower back and drags Guildenstern down and they begin again, right where they’ve left off.

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what you think!


End file.
